Analysis

Experts See Immunity Defense Reset After NJ Transit Ruling

By Carla Baranauckas

The U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling Wednesday that New Jersey Transit isn't an arm of the state clarified a key limit on sovereign immunity, with experts telling Law360 that the court's emphasis on corporate form and formal liability could change how states structure and defend their state-created, quasi‑governmental entities.

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NJ Trade Groups Fight Outgoing Admin's Environmental Rules

By Isaac Monterose

Two New Jersey trade groups said Friday that they are challenging land use rules designed to mitigate the effects of climate change that were finalized on Gov. Phil Murphy's last day in office.

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TriZetto, Cognizant Hit With Class Claims Over Data Breach

By George Woolston

A Cognizant Technology Solutions-owned healthcare tech company was hit with a proposed class action in New Jersey federal court on Friday over its alleged failure to protect the sensitive personal and health information of thousands.

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NJ Talc Suit Will Proceed Amid Beasley Allen DQ Appeal

By Emily Sawicki

The New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to stay multicounty litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder brought by hundreds of women who allege their ovarian cancer was linked to the product, while Beasley Allen appeals its removal as plaintiff's counsel over a firm partner's collaboration with the pharmaceutical giant's former outside counsel.

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Fencer Says US Olympic Committee's Trans Ban Is Unjustified

By David Steele

Banning a transgender woman from a fencing competition violated state antidiscrimination laws, and a White House executive order cannot override them, the fencer suing the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee told a New Jersey federal court.

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NJ Utility Dept. Approves Historic Solar Program Expansion

By George Woolston

New Jersey's utility regulator took a number of actions this week aimed at expanding clean energy generation in the state, including the approval of the largest-ever expansion of the Garden State-run Community Solar Energy Program.

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Roundup

Real Estate Recap: Big Data, C-PACE, Mamdani's Planners

By Real Estate Authority Staff

Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including a look at the evolution of big data in real estate transactions, C-PACE financing growth according to Nuveen's head counsel, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's recent picks to lead the city's planning department.

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3rd Circ. Revives White Cop's Bias Suit, Citing High Court

By Grace Elletson

The Third Circuit reinstated a white New Jersey cop's suit Friday claiming he wasn't promoted to chief because his town wanted to hire a racial minority, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that nixed an extra hurdle for workers of majority groups who claim they faced bias.

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Judge Wants Action On FEMA Disaster Mitigation Funds Delay

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge Friday ordered the Trump administration to step up its pace in restoring a disaster mitigation funding program, nearly three months after he ordered it to do so.

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Health Groups Back Bid To Bar Noncitizen Benefit Restrictions

By Gianna Ferrarin

A group of public health organizations and scholars Friday urged a Rhode Island federal court to make permanent its order blocking the Trump administration from enacting a policy change basing access to a host of federally funded services on immigration status.

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Judge Denies NJ Co.'s Protest Of $300M Air Force Contract

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has said a New Jersey contractor hasn't shown that the U.S. Air Force acted illegally by giving more weight to negative past performance reviews than other factors, rejecting the firm's bid for a spot on an up to $300 million multiple award construction contract.

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Leveraging MDLs And State Courts In Mass Tort Strategy

Multidistrict litigation's quiet drift from a pretrial coordination device to a de facto national court for mass torts poses a strategic question for plaintiffs counsel — whether an MDL will yield timely trials, meaningful accountability and fair value for clients, or whether a state court strategy will be more effective, say attorneys at DiCello Levitt.

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9th Circ. Ruling Evinces Tightening Of Nonmedical Hardship

The Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling in Vilchis-Gomez v. Bondi illustrates how a series of immigration decisions are transforming the extreme hardship defense to removal into a de facto medical necessity requirement, but practitioners can push back by continuing to assert long-standing precedents and building comprehensive records, says Abdoul Konare at Konare Law.

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DOJ Forges Ahead With Law Firm EO Appeals At DC Circ.

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday moved ahead with filing appeals at the D.C. Circuit to defend executive orders issued by President Donald Trump targeting four law firms, just three days after the agency backtracked on its decision to drop the fight.

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Legal Jobs Up 19th Straight Month In 'Goldilocks' Economy

By Tracey Read

The legal sector continued its lengthy upward streak in February, with 2,600 more people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in January, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Ex-Girardi Keese Atty Pleads Guilty For Role In Client Scandal

By Dorothy Atkins

Former Girardi Keese attorney Keith Griffin pled guilty to criminal contempt in Illinois federal court on Thursday for his role in the firm's failure to pay millions ​in client settlement funds to relatives of victims killed in the crash of Lion Air Flight 610.

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Louisiana Atty Sanctioned Over AI Hallucinations In Filing

By Matt Perez

A Louisiana attorney was fined $1,000 Thursday for his use of artificial intelligence in drafting an error-riddled brief, while three co-counsel were spared penalty.

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Investors Accuse Alston & Bird Of Aiding $328M Crypto Fraud

By David Minsky

Several investors have brought a Florida federal proposed class action alleging legal malpractice against Alston & Bird LLP, accusing the law firm of drafting joint venture agreements that were used to aid a $328 million cryptocurrency scam. 

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Constantine Cannon Defends Handling Of Sutter $75M Fee

By Dorothy Atkins

Constantine Cannon LLP pushed back against Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's allegations it unfairly reduced Schneider Wallace's share of a $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million antitrust deal, arguing in California federal court that the firm "sat on the sidelines" for most of the decadelong fight and isn't entitled to a bigger cut.

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Florida Bar Rescinds Claim Agency Is Investigating Halligan

By Jack Karp

The Florida Bar said Friday that it is not investigating controversial former interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, walking back a previous assertion it had made in a letter to a nonprofit that it was probing Halligan's actions.

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Courts Aren't Ignoring Justices' TPS Orders, Ex-Judges Say

By Ganesh Setty

Over 175 former federal and state judges have slammed the Trump administration's claim that lower courts "flouted" interim orders from the U.S. Supreme Court in litigation involving the administration's revocation of foreign nationals' temporary protected status, saying they weren't binding.

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Dems Again Push For Independent Immigration Courts

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats have again introduced a bill that would shift the immigration courts from the executive branch to an independent judiciary, following concerns that the Trump administration has "weaponized" the system.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen British American Tobacco sued by more than 100 investors, the government bring a claim against a COVID-19 supplier of personal protective equipment, Annington Funding sue its new corporate trustees on the Financial List, and Piers Morgan hit with a defamation claim from a pro-Israel barrister he interviewed on his YouTube channel. 

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Anthropic, the developer of Claude AI, says it will take the Pentagon to court over being designated a national security risk because it wants to impose ethical guardrails on Claude's use. And the Mideast war is making in-house legal teams across the country work long hours to protect employees trapped by the violence and to keep businesses running despite broken supply chains. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Winston & Strawn LLP, Sullivan Papain Block McManus Coffinas & Cannavo PC, Stanford's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and attorney Olivia Gabriel lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey cannot shield its public transit system from personal injury lawsuits by out-of-state plaintiffs under sovereign immunity.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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